Digital Influenza
by renegademechanic
Summary: After an exciting trip to the supermarket, Wheatley comes down with a bad case of digital influenza. Friendship Chelley.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: apparently this is Portal Fanfiction Spring Cleaning Week for me. Meaning, I am cleaning out the "DOCUMENTS" folder of my hard drive, and going through it all, deciding what to keep and what to throw away. I think it's safe to say that this one's a keeper—you'll see why, it's actually pretty cute—meaning that I'm going to actually make an attempt to finish it.

An attempt.

This'll be the second writing project I've re-opened so far this week (the second project being Mechanophilia). I've got a pretty good head start on that one (I think there's roughly one more part left, two more if I feel up to plottin' it up) and this one's probably about 2/3 finished. We'll see how it goes.

Cheers, and as always, remember to take care of your cuddly mechanical friends! They have feelings too uvu

Digital Influenza

Part 1 - Friday

The weekends always went by relatively fast. On Friday evenings, they went grocery shopping—an activity that Chell normally did not look forward to, much less after a hard weeks' worth of work, but scheduling it for Friday evenings allowed her to go an entire week without worrying. She might have lived for two, but Wheatley didn't eat. Perhaps this was why he found the rather miserable task of grocery shopping (in his words) absolutely _tremendous._

His favorite part was when, every second trip or so, Chell would steer the cart into the electronics section and allow Wheatley to choose a film he wanted to watch with her. This time, however, she had her _own _reason for visiting the aforementioned section—Chell was looking for some sort of chip or card that would provide her with extra room on her computer's hard drive and allow her to connect wirelessly to the panel-and-management-rail system she'd had installed in her house.

That was her landlord's doing, Fred—he lived upstairs, and the few times Chell had ever seen inside of his place she'd found herself wondering silently, _how does he have room to move around in here_? It appeared to be half workshop, half living space, and the scent of machine oil and grease wafted down into the basement where Chell lived effortlessly, not that she minded. These scents, after spending so much time around them, were almost homely to her.

Chell had the strangest suspicion (which was partially proven to be correct, given the amount of free time he had dedicated to helping her) that Fred had allowed her living space mainly because of Wheatley. Outside of Aperture, that was how it went—after spending what seemed like endless months with their 'relationship' on the rocks, in which nightmares were a constant and oftentimes she'd sent Wheatley sailing across the room during one of her more manic phases, she'd finally found a space where the landlord didn't seem to mind that she was mute, and the 'person' put in charge of communications was no more than a round, all-eye robot.

Slowly, the manic phases had slowed to become few-and-far between, and she no longer worried about waking up in the middle of the night to see _him _and the following racket of tumbling, shouted apologies, yells, and slams as Chell tried to get him as far away from her as possible.

~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~

With time, she forgave him. With time, all wounds healed, although the scars remained—she would never forget what he did to her. He had, however, proved himself to be sorry, and what was more, he had also proved trustworthy and deserving of her forgiveness, if she should ever bring herself to fully forgive him. For now, they set a weekly schedule, which suited them both well—that was something they had in common. They both liked order, and hated chaos; the only problem was, Wheatley seemed to be a master of chaos.

And so, on that fateful Friday evening, Chell had unstrapped Wheatley from the children's seat she'd installed in the back of her car and heaved him bodily into the front of the shopping cart, where he could sit up high and see everything.

"Oh, thank you, great," he'd said without looking at her, so accustomed to the procedure he'd hardly even noticed the change in distance from the ground. At least that was another thing Fred's management rails had helped with—Wheatley was less afraid of disengaging from them (provided there was a comfy space to land) and, therefore, he also became braver around heights.

His blue eye bobbed, its color ever more vibrant under the evening sky, flashing to and fro as he glanced around. "'Ave you got the list? All set? All ready to gather all of the usual materials you need, then, for cooking, and the like?"

Chell nodded, grinning a little in spite of herself. She pushed lightly against the cart to face the entrance of the supermarket.

"Supermarket…" Wheatley read for the umpteenth time. He always did this—he had to read everything, just to prove that he could do it, and then, he'd have to comment on the 'human names', and give her a million-and-one reasons why such names made zero sense. She let out a sharp breath of amusement, barely able to conceal a small laugh. "Supermarket. I mean, fair enough I've said it once already before, or maybe a dozen times, but why does it have to be called a _supermarket_? Shouldn't it… I don't know… be called something a little bit more descriptive to its purpose, like a… a food… or grocery… depot? But then again, don't you think _grocery _is a little strange, too? I mean y'know, fair enough, I 'ave no idea what else you would call them—an assortment of goods stacked nicely away inside of plastic bags—but it's just not very _practical, _innit? Not very _fun _either, _groceries. _Not a nice word. At least _supermarket _sounds fun. Very amusing. Very… _super._"

Other shoppers pointed and stared at the core lodged into the bench where a child should normally have sat, but Chell paid no attention to them. She was too used to people gawking, if not at Wheatley, then at her—it was well-known that she was mute and, in their opinion, unfriendly to all except her small round robot companion and maybe Fred. Chell knew sign language, but it was rare that she should find another who could sign as well—Fred was learning (he said that he didn't mind giving it a try, as generally he enjoyed any activities that were 'hands-on') and Wheatley had downloaded some sort of software from their wireless network that allowed him to interpret her hand gestures.

"Right," said Wheatley confidently, trying to twist and lean himself forward, better to view the looming shelves, "What's the first thing on the list, then? Is it carrots? It was carrots last time, wasn't it? Big orange things, kind of flimsy, bit weird-looking, if I could be honest. No, it's not carrots… umm… no, no, don't tell me, don't tell me yet! I want to have a guess…"

While Wheatley was trying to predict what sort of item she'd first grab, Chell wheeled the cart around and into the vegetable section.

"Okay, I already guessed carrots…" mused Wheatley quietly so that none but she could hear as she wheeled on by the carrot display. Wheatley's eye followed the orange, stick-like vegetables with a strangely smug expression. "Not your turn today, mates. Gonna have to wait for another Friday for us to, um… buy you. To eat. Or… for _her _to eat. Maybe try that bloke, though… he looks like a carrot sort of guy, doesn't he?"

Chell only glanced away in the direction Wheatley was looking in for long enough to catch sight of a man making his way over to the carrots, before her eyes locked back onto a nicely-arranged mountain of what she'd really been craving.

"_Oh_!" gasped Wheatley as a dark skinned hand stretched out to pluck the reddest of the lot off of the top of the pyramid, "_Apples_! Yes, I know what those are!"

She grabbed three in total, smiling all the while, and then signed to him, _Ay-double-pee-ell-ee. Apple._

Wheatley's eye aperture widened to its upmost extent as he looked at her, the color inside darkening to deep ocean blue. "Ooooh, well done, luv! Yes, _apple. _This apple's crunchy, you might say… although, um, although… I don't exactly know for sure… _are _they crunchy?"

Chell shrugged. Honestly, she'd never had an apple before, so she couldn't say for sure. _I think so, _she signed.

"Wonderful. Know what else is interesting about apples?" Wheatley asked her, his plates shifting to give him a rather cheeky, know-it-all expression as she deposited the apples into the cart. "Know what else? Oh, you're not gonna believe this, luv. You're gonna think old Wheatley's gone around the bend, gone absolutely crazy, but I haven't! Apples have _cores._"

The way he'd said this, whispered it to her while leaning close to her all the while, glancing around as if afraid that someone might be listening in, was ridiculous and Chell had to exercise all of her willpower not to burst out laughing right then and there.

"I know!" he continued on, not even paying attention as Chell pulled assorted cans of food off of the closest shelf and stacked them neatly in the cart. "I wouldn't have believed it either! _Cores, _in fruit, of all things. Well, we know for sure who the more primitive cores are, though. Definitely not yours truly. Definitely not me."

Chell shook her head, and continued down the long aisles, listening to his ever-present babble without really paying attention. Once in a while, something would stick out to her and she'd turn around, eyeing him curiously until he explained himself. One such occasion was when she'd reached for a package of toilet paper.

"What is _that_?" Wheatley asked, and by this point he'd worked himself up enough that he could no longer keep quiet. With each item Chell chose, Wheatley's voice rose in excitement as he rounded off all of the possible things every object could be used for, whether it be food, household, you name it. "What _is _that?" he asked again, his optic plate sliding out to better read the colorful plastic label spread across the package's front.

Chell moved closer to him and allowed him a moment to look, blowing a loose strand of hair from her eyes as she waited.

Wheatley froze, staring for so long Chell wondered if maybe the core was having some sort of technical issue. The thought worried her more than she would have liked to admit, and before she could stop herself, she signed to him, _are you all right, Wheatley_?

"What? Oh! Yes," he looped his face once and as he came back to rest, Chell saw his eye aperture constrict and dilate repeatedly, as if he were trying to focus. "Was just remembering the last time I had a look at the old toilet."

His face retracted back into his core, as if he were trying to hide, the blue of his optic deepening as he blushed. Chell chuckled—she had a certain feeling she knew exactly what he was on about.

He was referring to a night three weeks prior when she had awoken to use the bathroom. She'd been having nightmares again that night, although they were not of the usual sort—generally, her nightmares consisted of being forced through the testing chambers by one of the two omnipotent AI's Aperture had known during her time—GLaDOS or Wheatley. That night, however, the dream had been different. She'd been running along with Wheatley, escaping from GLaDOS when she'd fallen—the catwalk beneath her feet had suddenly collapsed, and Chell was falling. Wheatley was screaming, trying to help her, calling for her, _Lady! Lady can you hear me! Lady please come back, I need help, I can't get out by myself!_

Chell wondered, in retrospection, exactly how much of that had been a dream, for when she'd woken up she'd stumbled in a half-asleep haze into the bathroom to find the most unexpected sight she'd ever seen in her entire life—Wheatley, lodged inside of the toilet bowl.

At first, she hadn't believed it was real. It _must _have been a dream! But no, she found out it was _really happening, _and had stood there, clutching the doorframe for support as Wheatley recounted how exactly he'd ended up inside of the toilet bowl.

Basically, Wheatley had gotten bored while she'd been asleep. It was not that unprecedented, and not the first time he'd made a mess at such an hour in the morning—two A.M., judging by her clock—and every single time it was because he was bored and had gotten _so _confident at disengaging from the management rail that he'd misjudged either distance and/or the surface below him he intended to land on.

This time, he'd jumped because he'd '_heard the _whoosh _sound the toilet apparatus made before and wondered how the lady had gotten it to do that, and where that sound was actually coming from because it sounded semi-dangerous and anything dangerous inside of their home _he _had a right to know about. So he'd gone in there, and saw that little button, or lever, on the side of the thing and couldn't _resist _giving it a try, just once, for science._' And had misjudged the distance. His handle had clipped the side of the thing and sent him in it, _screaming _for dear bloody life, optic-first into the water and he'd been so convinced he was _dead _that he'd sat there for half an hour in disbelief.

Back in the store, Chell held the packet of toilet paper in the crook of her arm to sign to him, grinning, _Well at least we found out you're water proof…_

"Very funny," grumbled Wheatley, looking away from the toilet paper. "Just put it in the cart, willya? Let's get a move on."

She did as he asked with a straight face, but cracked up again when he requested she buy more hand sanitizer, complaining that he still felt a bit _itchy _from the experience, even three weeks later.

_Nonsense, _she signed. _I cleaned the toilet myself!_

"Yeah, well…" he rolled his eye again, pointedly not looking at her, "I do know what you _do _in that thing. I'm not, you know, _completely _naïve when it comes to, er… um, on second thought, let's just forget that ever happened, yeah? And make sure you don't…" he was whispering again, glancing around nervously, "_tell _anyone you found me jammed in the old loo, okay? Noooooot strictly something I want our mates to know about. You understand."

She nodded, and continued rolling on down the aisle.

~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~

Wheatley cheered up a bit when they reached the electronic section. Chell quickly found the device she'd needed, and held it out for Wheatley to examine before placing it into the cart. Then, he'd wanted to go and have a look at the audio section, for whatever godforsaken reason Chell could not fathom.

She didn't mind, though, as she was ahead of schedule and had been so amused at the recollection of finding Wheatley in the toilet that she felt a bit more awake, so she wheeled the cart over to the wall covered with different kinds of speakers and LED displays meant for car radios and the like, and stopped, staring at him.

_Well? _she signed.

Wheatley's eye was wide. "I had an idea…" he said slowly, distractedly. "I want to try something."

Chell let out her breath slowly, a crease forming between her eyebrows. She knew from experience—Wheatley's ideas were _never _good ideas.

"Oh, don't give me that look!" he protested. "Just hear me out? Just this once. Annnnd—stealth pun, there. _Hear _me out. Get it? We're in the speakers section." His upper handle rose as he chuckled before resuming his expectant, bright-eyed stare.

She _hated _that expression… not because it was rude, or mean, or made her angry, but because of exactly the opposite reason. It gave her a swooping feeling in her stomach, like she'd missed a step going downstairs, pooling in her belly in a fluttery-but-gnawing sort of way and it was _terrible _because, as tenacious as she was, Wheatley was learning much too quickly that he could get anything he wanted out of her with that stare.

Chiding herself inwardly, she signed, _Okay, fine. Just as long as it's not illegal._

Wheatley chuckled again. "'Course it's not, luv! Umm… or… at least… noooo, I don't think it is. I think we're fine." He glanced around again for good measure. "Okay. Ready? All set to hear my idea?"

She nodded.

"You see that plug, over there? The one attached to that fancy-looking bit of technology, with the speakers?"

She nodded again, wincing a little because she pretty well knew what was coming, by now, and something inside of her told her it was _a really bad idea._

"Well, what are you waiting for?!" he cheered loudly, making her jump. "Let's give it a go—plug me in!"

She wheeled right beside the machine, rolling her eyes once she felt certain that Wheatley's full attention was on the plug in question. "Come on!" he urged her, excitement evident in every syllable of his voice. "Come on, come on!"

_Be quiet, _she signed, and then grabbed the plug.

Curiously, the first thing she noticed was that (unfortunately) this plug looked to be completely compatible with the one on Wheatley's back. It did nothing for the feeling of foreboding in her gut, but she prized the core partially out of the bench anyhow, reaching around to make the connection. It slid in snugly with a small, satisfying _click._

What happened next caught her completely by surprise, although, judging by the fact that she was in the _speaker section _she should have known—Wheatley's response was to let out a triumphant cheer, "Waaa-heeeeyyy! Check _me _out, eh!" although the thing that _really _got her (and everyone else within about a hundred-meter radius) _was that his voice was being broadcasted through the display speaker system, and the volume was on full blast! _The second he noticed this, his eye completed another loop-the-loop and he cheered again, narrating his adventure in what was probably a world of code undistinguishable to any normal human (aside from, perhaps, Fred. Chell grinned in spite of herself at the thought of what he'd say if he could see this).

Frantically she tried to ignore the sheer _volume _of Wheatley's voice and the rather nasty memories that were resurfacing of the last time she'd heard his voice being broadcasted like that as she searched for the volume control. Wheatley prattled on in paramount amusement.

"_Would you look at this_?" he asked the electronic section at large. "Little old me, _my _voice, broadcasted over all of _these_! All of them, all at once. _Brilliant. _Hahahaha!" he laughed as he caught sight of Chell, who was trying to turn as many dials as she could to 'zero', "Not gonna work, luv. You see, I can override that. I can override _everything_! I'm in charge—listen to _this_! Listen to what _I _can do!"

Chell plastered her hands to her face in embarrassment as she noticed the crowd of onlookers beginning to grow around her cart (still containing the little, overly-excited robot).

"Testing, testing…" Chell looked around so fast she cricked her neck. Wheatley's voice—well, it _wasn't his voice at all_! _What did you DO? _she signed to him violently. _Did you break yourself? Did you—_

"No, no it's all fine!" the normal west-country drawl had vanished to be replaced with a slower, deeper sound that resonated against her chest, full of bass. "And, uhh… should clarify. Should clarify—not _testing _as in you-know-what. Not _real _science. Just… just having a bit of fun with these speakers, here. All right… let's see what this thing can do…"

Wheatley's optic constricted as he focused, and his voice changed from the deep, masculine tones she had just heard to a girly, high-pitched tone. Several of the people listening in were laughing, leaning on their shopping carts for support as Wheatley's high-pitched helium voice suddenly dissolved into a rather hoarse-sounding coughing fit.

Deciding they'd both had _quite _enough, Chell pulled the plug unceremoniously from his back, resulting in the ear-popping sound of feedback from the speaker system. Wheatley groaned in disappointment. "Wh… what was that for?" he coughed again. "Why did you unplug me? Why did you…" _cough, cough, _"Why…" _cough, _"I don't underst—"

_Later, _she signed to him, catching sight of the store manager, trying to make his way toward them through the crowd of people. Chell steered the cart out of the electronics center, gazing down at Wheatley with worry all the while. He was still coughing.


	2. Chapter 2

Digital Influenza

Part 2 - Saturday Morning

Chell did not sleep wonderfully that night. She let Wheatley sleep beside her as her bed was big enough for the two of them. After the escapade with the toilet in the middle of the night a fortnight ago, she personally felt that it was best if he wasn't allowed on his rail when she wasn't there to keep an eye on him. It felt too heartless to just plop him down on the couch for the evening, when she couldn't exactly afford to keep the television on for him all night, every night—so instead, she'd made a makeshift nest for him out of several raggedy blankets she'd pulled from the storage cupboard, and allowed him to snuggle up into them as best he could.

That was a quality Chell had not foreseen in the little core. Wheatley was a sucker for comfort, whether it be soft things, subtle warmth, or her mere presence—add all three things and she'd see the side of him he'd never let show through while they had been focused on escaping from the facility. It was the side that, above all, had been responsible for her allowing him to board with her instead of chucking him out on the street where he really did belong after what he'd done to her. Here, in the outside world, Wheatley was powerless without her, and she liked that.

She slept deeply, oblivious to the automatic sounds he made as he drifted in and out of sleep mode. He made quiet whirrs when he'd shift in his pile of blankets and occasionally mumble something indistinguishable to himself. Wheatley was quiet at night, for which she was thankful because she needed her sleep—or, Wheatley was _usually _quiet. Today seemed to be a rare exception.

"_Ahem-hemm_," he'd coughed loudly at seven-thirty on a Saturday, waking her up automatically. "_Ahem._" He'd frozen then, seeing her turn over and sit upright, rubbing her eyes with an expression that clearly said, _are you all right_?

Wheatley's optic shrunk to a pinprick of light. "You're awake! You're—um, actually you aren't supposed to be awake yet. You don't have work today. This… this isn't my fault, is it? I… did I wake you up?"

She'd hardly ever seen him look so disconcerted. Sleepily, she nodded, and his top handle drooped visibly. "Oh," he said sadly, "I… didn't mean to. So sorry. I just felt a bit of an odd feeling, all of a sudden. A bit of an itch—not _that _sort of an itch, of course," he laughed awkwardly, "Not anything of the sort. This was more of an- an _internal _sort of itch, with my vocal processor. Bit itchy, in there, just needed to- to clear it out, a bit. _Ahem. _See, all's fine—you can go back to sleep, if you like. Have a nap. Everything's good!"

He grinned up at her, and she stared back, nonplussed, before turning over and drifting back into sleep.

~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~

On Saturdays, Chell would take care of any small errands or projects she needed to get done which she didn't normally feel like taking care of during the week—it was the one day of the weekend where, generally, she didn't spend much time with Wheatley. Recently, she'd taken to leaving him with Fred as a sort of babysitter while she was out (the sheer amount of machine-y trinkets and robotic things he'd gathered over time and his many works-in-progress kept Wheatley entertained more than anything she'd ever thought of could). Sometimes she felt bad for doing this, although Fred said he didn't mind—he claimed to actually enjoy Wheatley's company a lot, to which Chell simply shrugged and signed, _If you say so. _

It wasn't that she didn't consider Wheatley good company, because she _did—_it was just that neither of the two Aperture escapees fit into the outside world very often. Chell had a grand total of zero friends besides Wheatley and, perhaps, Fred—others were nice enough, but it was hard to connect with someone who you shared absolutely no past experiences with. She couldn't speak, she had no knowledge of world history or recent events, she had not attended any schooling that she knew of, and her social skills were nonexistent. The only area she felt really comfortable in was anything that contained machines—driving, factory work, assembly lines—it was no wonder she suited industrial work so well.

But this Saturday, Chell had no errands to run, and no projects to complete, and nothing to do whatsoever if she was honest with herself. Over breakfast, Wheatley quickly noticed she was preoccupied (she'd hardly even looked at him, and instead stared, transfixed, by the streaky kitchen window, as if the rain falling outside was exceedingly interesting) and began to ask her what was the matter.

_Nothing, _she signed back to him, _I'm just…_

"No plans?" Wheatley asked her, optic narrowed with interest. "None at all? Well. I would suggest that we watch another film as it's raining outside…" He shivered then, and Chell perked up a bit, amused because Wheatley always made it very clear that he disliked water.

It wasn't that water posed a dangerous threat to him (she knew that now, after finding him stuck in the toilet that one time) but he disliked it nonetheless.

He shook his faceplate back and forth before continuing. "But can't do that, can we? No. Forgot to buy a new one, yesterday, didn't you, as you were in a massive rush to leave."

She thought this was a bit of an unfair accusation, but she bit her lip, choosing not to react. Sometimes Wheatley could still be a little selfish and unthoughtful—after all, he was still the same sphere she had plugged into the GLaDOS mainframe so long ago. The chassis had served only to emphasise his worst personality traits, but there was no denying that they still existed without it. Less and less he let them show through, which was promising, and usually she would point selfish comments out, draw attention to them—but she was bored and tired and feeling a bit depressed, if she was honest with herself. The last thing she wanted was an argument with Wheatley.

He seemed to catch onto how she was feeling, though. "Hey…" he said slowly, trying to rearrange his face into a cheerful smile. "It's all right, luv. No need to look so down, it's only a film, after all. Hey! Here's an idea—why don't we go ask old Fred if he's got any films up there, eh? How does that sound?"

Chell perked up a bit and quirked an eyebrow, signing _Does Fred even own a television?_

"Well… er, no, he's not a movie sort of fellow, if I could be honest," replied Wheatley. "Not a big movie buff, you might say. Couldn't he come down here and use ours, though? I mean, it's a fairly nice one, a good size, isn't it? And I can help you tidy up a bit."

It took a bit more persuasion on his part, but Chell finally agreed—she'd have his help tidying up, and then she'd bring him around the outside of the house to knock on his door and ask him if he'd like to watch a film.

Wheatley was a little over-enthusiastic about the cleaning. Chell had given him the task of sweeping, by use of a spindly arm Fred had created that could be plugged into the back of him, giving him the ability to manipulate objects closeby. She herself had attached a broom to the end, and taught Wheatley how to 'sweep'.

"I've got this, don't worry," he reassured her as she left him to it. He nodded for emphasis, and she chuckled lightly, and headed back into the kitchen to clean up the dishes from breakfast.

~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~

Ten minutes later, she heard a giant _crash, _a scream, and then Wheatley calling _ouch_, followed by repeated apologies once he heard her rapidly approaching footsteps.

She'd found him in the bathroom—_hadn't she told him not to go into the bathroom anymore without her there to keep an eye on him_?

"I know you said not to go in there…" he started, looking sheepish, dangling from the rail. As she stepped forward he automatically drew himself closer to it, as if fearing she was about to pull him down and let him drop onto the floor, or something. "But I just thought… sweeping… hey! That room, there, the loo, it's good a nice, sweep-able floor. And the lady, she instructed me to sweep _everywhere, _so I came in here, and I was overwhelmed with this _feeling…_"

As he spoke, Chell searched around for the source of the crash she'd heard earlier. It took her a surprisingly long time to locate it because she'd been looking everywhere except the one place where, perhaps, she should have looked more carefully—her _toothbrush, _wedged in the side of the core, held there by—_toilet paper_?

There was also toilet paper wound all the way around his broom handle and lying, shredded and torn in pieces, across the floor.

She'd asked him to _sweep, _not do the opposite of sweeping.

_What did you do_? she signed frantically.

"Oh… I-I, um, well as I was saying, I came in here, and I got this- this _feeling. _Like an, uh…" he was looking at her sideways, now, obviously wishing he could disappear from the rail. "Itch. And as I said before, not _the _itch, not the _bad _itch, although, obviously, it was quite uncomfortable… but a- a different sort of itch, coming from inside of me. So I began looking around, and I found that stick, there, and I couldn't grab it, so I used that white paper to sort of wrap it up until I could, and oh boy, you would not _believe _how easy it is to get that paper, just there, _everywhere. _Didn't mean to do that, strictly speaking, all I wanted was that old stick to poke inside me and scratch the old vocal processor because it was feeling a bit strange again and I was coughing, but _as _I was coughing—funny thing, this—my eye closed all by itself and I _sneezed_! Never would guess, that, that it would close all by itself, and I sort of lost track of things, and then the stick caught on the gears inside of me, and everything just sort of went haywire at once, and I…"

He stopped talking, dissolving into another coughing fit. Chell looked at him, her mouth partially open, and then lunged forward (Wheatley's response was to gasp and splutter and cough even _more _as he tried to reverse away from her along the management rail) and she ripped her mangled toothbrush from his side, frowning deeply.

"Ah," said Wheatley awkwardly, "Thank you."

But she didn't stop frowning. Instead, she signed, _What's wrong with you_?

"Sorry?" he replied distractedly, optic spinning around dazedly. "You mean with this itch? And the coughing, and all? I… nothing! I'm perfectly fine!"

Chell frowned at him. _No you're not._

"Okay, I'm not," Wheatley gave up, looking dejected. "I'm all cold, too," he shivered, "Did you turn the heat off, in here? But I do think I know what's wrong with my voice. I suspect—remember yesterday, at the Supermarket?—Great fun, that was, but I think… I think maybe…" he looked _so _embarrassed and said in a small voice, "I might have strained my vocal processor a bit, by doing that."

He stopped talking to look left and right, anywhere except for at Chell. She allowed herself to chuckle a little. _'Told you so', _she thought.

"So I'll have to just take it easy on the old voice, I suppose. Messing with vocal algorithms—completely out of the question. Mental note: no changes, whatsoever, to my voice, in the future. Not a good idea. Although it seemed fun, at the time, didn't it?"

Chell nodded slowly, letting her eyes settle on the papered floor, before re-examining her broken toothbrush. As bad as she felt for Wheatley's sudden itching and coughing, the fact of the matter was, she'd _told _him not to come into the bathroom again in the first place. _You still weren't supposed to come in here, _she gestured.

"That's true," nodded the sphere, "Very true. Sorry… sorry about that, mate. _Ahem._"

_We don't need this happening again_, Wheatley watched her fingers move quickly, his expression full of concentration, _I am going to lock you in time-out until I am done cleaning in here._

"Oh, _what_!" gasped Wheatley as she took his arm in her firm grasp and lead him to the broom cupboard. "Oh, _not the closet_!" he protested loudly, but slid inside obediently. Chell closed the doors, shaking her head in disappointment.

~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~

He talked to himself _constantly _while she cleaned. He'd been in time-out before, so he'd already learned that calling for her and pleading to be let out wasn't going to work, but that didn't stop him from holding entire conversations in there by himself. Sometimes, he could be a little passive-aggressive about it.

"Must be _nice,_" she heard him grumble, "To have real _hands. _Push smaller blokes around. _Ahem. _Shove them in the closet when they've been naughty. Not saying that I don't deserve it, of course, just saying that it would be useful, very useful to have hands. _Ahem! Ack. _You're saying to yourself, _what would Wheatley do with hands_? Well I'll tell you what Wheatley would do with hands. First of all, Wheatley would… _ahem_…" his words dissolved into another coughing fit, "Use his fingers, to scratch the itch that is bothering me. That would be nice. Seriously, just itch the old vocal processor… stop this coughing… and, _ahem, _secondly, and most importantly, I would be able to open this door, and let myself out. Into the room outside, there."

Chell turned on the vacuum. Wheatley spoke louder, shouting over the noise.

"ALSO," she could make out, wincing because his voice sounded hoarser than ever, "IF I HAD HANDS, I COULD DO LOTS OF USEFUL, HOUSEHOLD THINGS. _Ahem, ach, ahem._ I COULD PUSH THAT LITTLE LEVER ON THE TOILET, AS LONG AS I WAS ALLOWED BACK IN THAT ROOM, OF COURSE. THAT MIGHT BE USEFUL. MAYBE. Ack."

She had the distinct feeling that the only reason Wheatley wanted to be in the bathroom so badly was because it was the one place inside of her house she wouldn't let him. She shook her head, holding her head in her hands, only sparing a thought to how worn his voice sounded and to how it was probably never going to heal if he kept it up, and then resumed her chores.

~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~

There were no hard feelings, later on once Chell reopened the closet door. He tried to greet her with an excessively bright _"Hello!" _and a cheerful smile, but his voice had gone rather static-filled. He allowed her to scoop him up into her arms and carry him outdoors.

Wheatley was shivering nonstop. She tried to keep him out of the rain as she walked him around the house, but he fidgeted a rather lot and made doing so very difficult. Great droplets of rain hit him on the iris and he blinked and yelped in surprise.

"'Ey! I can't _see_!" he shouted. "Can't—_ahem, ahem_—see. _And _it's still itchy. Still—_ahem_—itchy, and I can't see. Brilliant. Just perfect. Uuuugh." Shivers wracked his entire body, and Chell pulled him close to her, biting her lip and looking down at him in worry.

_Calm down, _she signed to him, and she used a dry bit of her coat to dry the rain from his eye. _Better_?

"I can see again! Thank you! Well—not that I couldn't actually see beforehand. Was a bit blurry, is all. _Ahem. _It's so cold out here… hurry up, would you…"

She walked up the front steps of the house that led to the main level, careful not to drop Wheatley, and knocked three times on Fred's door.

~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~\\\~

Fred was the one human being that had never made Chell feel alienated during her time in the outside world. Perhaps it was the way he always smelled like machines, or the bit of oil always smeared across his nose, or the way his black hair was slicked back over his head and tied in a short pony. He felt a little bit like her, in a way—she knew he'd must have had a story, but she'd never asked. All she really knew about Fred was that, like Wheatley, he had a bit of an accent—though, instead of Wheatley's West Country drawl, Fred had a Yankee accent.

So she knew the man had, at one point in time, lived on the east coast. But beyond that… he was a mechanics and computer whizz with just about as many friends as _she _had.

Admittedly, she felt a little awkward knocking on his door without warning like this—normally she'd email him beforehand, asking if he wouldn't mind spending the afternoon with Wheatley—and she'd never invited him over before, either.

Wheatley, however, couldn't keep still with how excited he was.

"Oooh, I've just been thinking," he babbled, still in that hoarse voice as they waited for Fred to answer the door. "I wonder if he has Free Willy? I liked that movie."

Fred answered the door, looking fairly annoyed, but his face brightened with a smile when he saw who it was. "Hey!" he cheered in his smooth, deep voice, beaming. "How's my favorite robot doing today?"

"I'm, _ahem_," coughed Wheatley, "Pretty good."

Chell couldn't help but notice that the core's handles appeared to be drooping slightly.

"Are you sure?" Fred frowned immediately, before turning to Chell. "What's the matter with his voice?"

Trying to sign with the weight of the core still in her arms was difficult. _It's a long story, _she said, shrugging.

"Ah. Do you guys want to come inside, out of the rain?"

Fred's level of the house smelled especially strongly today, and a glance at his kitchen table showed Chell why immediately. What looked like—and smelled like—engine components were littering his kitchen table.

"Just been working on this," he explained, clearing a spot for Wheatley, and bringing up a chair for Chell to sit down on. "It's a lawn mower motor."

"Oooh," said Wheatley, perking up slightly with interest. He turned in his case to look at it. "What's that for?"

"You know that machine I take outside sometimes that makes all the noise? The one to cut the grass? That's a lawn mower."

Wheatley looked thoughtful. "Ah."

"Anyway," said Fred, waving aside whatever he was building with the lawn mower motor—a curious sort of contraption, Chell thought, though she knew better than to sign and ask. She'd be here all day with the explanation, probably. By the looks of it, he was building something at least as long as two of Wheatley. "What brings you two up here?"

_We wanted to ask, _signed Chell (Wheatley was still staring at the lawn mower motor contraption), _if you would like to watch a movie with us. _

Fred's look was one of sheer surprise. "Really?"

Chell nodded.

"That sounds like a great idea!"

_But of course, if you were busy, _she looked again at the mechanics splayed all over the table. _And we've seen all the movies we've got. _

Fred, too, looked at his project. "This can wait," he said. "It isn't even for me. I'm going to sell it. There's a pretty good market for this kind of stuff, but I don't need the cash right away." Chell caught the gleam in his eye. "And anyways—a movie sounds great. I think I've got one Wheatley would like to watch."

Wheatley's eye snapped away from the machine and up onto Fred immediately. "Oooh," he cooed, "What is it?"

"You'll see."


End file.
